The Articulation of Economic, Political, and Ideological Domination

The relations among economic, political, and ideological domination can be considered in terms of the structurally-inscribed selectivity of particular forms of domination and the strategies that help to consolidate (or undermine) these selectivities. The bias inscribed on the terrain of the state as a site of strategic action can only be understood as a bias relative to specific strategies pursued by specific forces to advance specific interests over a given time horizon in terms of a specific set of other forces, each advancing their own interests through specific strategies. Particular forms of state privilege some strategies over others, privi­lege the access of some forces over others, some interests over others, some time horizons over others, some coalition possibilities over others. A given type of state, a given state form, a given form of regime, will be more accessible to some forces than others according to the strategies they adopt to gain state power. And it will be more suited to the pursuit of some types of economic or political strategy than others because of the modes of intervention and resources that characterize that system. All of this indicates the need to examine the differences among types of state (e.g. feudal vs. capitalist), state forms (e.g. absolutist, liberal, interventionist), modes of political representation (e.g. democratic vs. despotic), specific political regimes (e.g. bureaucratic authoritarian, fascist, and military or parliamentary, presidential, mass plebiscitary, etc.), particular policy instruments (e.g. Keynesian demand management vs. neo-liberal supply-side policies), and so on (see Jessop 1982, 1990).

Whereas Jessop, building on Poulantzas, tends to emphasize the structural moment of "strategic selectivity," Gramsci focused on its strategic moment. In particular, against the then prevailing view that the economic base unilaterally determined the juridico-political superstructure and prevailing forms of social consciousness; Gramsci argued that there was a reciprocal relationship between the economic "base" and its politico-ideological "superstructure." He studied this problem in terms of how "the necessary reciprocity between structure and superstructure" is secured through specific intellectual, moral, and political broader "ethico-political" ones. Only thus, he wrote, does the economic struc­ture cease to be an external, constraining force and become a source of initiative and subjective freedom (1971: 366-7). This implies that the ethico-political not only co-constitutes economic structures but also gives them their rationale and legitimacy. Where such a reciprocal relationship exists between base and super­structure, Gramsci spoke of an "historic bloc.'" He also introduced the concept of power bloc and hegemonic bloc to analyze respectively the alliances among dominant classes and the broader ensemble of national-popular forces that were mobilized behind a specific hegemonic project. The concept of hegemonic bloc refers to the historical unity not of structures (as in the case of the historical bloc] but of social forces (which Gramsci analyzed in terms of the ruling classes, supporting classes, mass movements, and intellectuals). An hegemonic bloc is a durable alliance of class forces organized by a class (or class fraction) which has proved itself capable of exercising political, intellectual, and moral leadership over the dominant classes and the popular masses alike. Gramsci notes a key organizational role here for "organic intellectuals," i.e., persons able to develop hegemonic projects that express the long-term interests of the dominant or subaltern classes in "national-popular" terms. Gramsci also emphasized the need for a "decisive economic nucleus" to provide the basis for long-term hegemony and criticized efforts to construct an "arbitrary, rationalistic, and willed" hegemony which ignored economic realities.

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